


Drabbles and Minifics

by reymanova (costiellie)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, all unbeta'd, because who knows what will happen, i got sick of typing that on every one so i thought i'd put it here?, rated a soft T
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 07:59:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7039714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/costiellie/pseuds/reymanova
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of all of my drabbles and minifics from tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Let Them Be

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first published fic? Wowie. Thanks to those of you who were so kind to it on tumblr. Ilyall.

May first notices the small, quiet moments. 

Their hands brush together during a team briefing, fingers lingering a little too long. They look meaningfully at each other when they think no one else is looking, guards down and eyes shining. 

She notices then but she doesn’t say a word. She doesn't want to intervene, doesn't want to interfere. They have been in deep for years – she has known this from the start. But even though Daisy has torn the Playground to pieces, she sees a lightness in them now that she didn’t see yesterday, and before her eyes she sees it begin. For the first time in their lives, she realizes, they are actively choosing to fall, fall, fall, further and further until they forget what it felt like before. 

After everything they have been through, they deserve it. It’s been a long time since May has seen something so pure, so real, and perhaps it’s selfish, but she allows herself to just watch them for a moment before she turns back to Coulson’s presentation. 

Now Lincoln is gone and Daisy is missing and everything hurts like hell and sometimes she wants to give up, but she watches them and watches them and it keeps her afloat. 

The two of them work in the lab after hours when no one else is around, pinkies hooked innocently between them like children. (When she met them, that's what they were. That's what all of them were.) When Fitz finishes his work before Jemma he wraps his arms around her waist from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder, keeping her company as he watches her finish up.

She knows she should tell Coulson. If things were normal he would have known almost as soon as she did, but he has been so caught up in finding Daisy lately that he has to be reminded to eat sometimes. Telling him, she decides, would probably be good for him. It’d give him a reminder that the rest of the world is still turning, give him a tidbit of happiness when frustration and anger and hurt overcome. But for now, for their sake, she doesn't. She just lets them be, her eyes lingering on them every time she passes the lab. 

It’s early on a Saturday morning, the day after Lincoln’s funeral. It was harder to get out of bed this morning than usual. Still, May enters the common room to fill her water before tai chi, and is glad for it when she finds them tangled in each other on the couch, having fallen asleep the night before watching some film. Jemma's head rests in the crook of Fitz's neck, one of his arms around her shoulder with his hand in her hair, the other hand intertwined with hers, resting on his chest. Even as he sleeps, his thumb brushes back and forth absently against her knuckles. Jemma sighs contentedly.

It’s such an innocent image, one she might see more often if they weren’t fighting war after war and losing soldier after soldier. She hovers for a moment, trying to decide whether or not to alert them of her presence, but ultimately decides to just quietly revel in the simplicity of the moment. Then she smiles slightly and treads silently as she goes to the sink, careful not to wake them. By the time she comes back for her morning tea, they are gone.

Late one Tuesday night after a long, long day of work and another failed attempt at communicating with Daisy, May trudges to the living quarters. She hears them before she sees them: around the corner, they lean up against the wall next to Fitz's door. Fitz is kissing her and Jemma keeps giggling and his hand is halfway up her shirt and her hands are roaming and they are glued to each other in a way that makes May think that nothing could ever tear them apart.

SHIELD has been trying to rebuild, but things keep falling apart and crumbling and tearing themselves apart. People keep falling apart and crumbling and tearing themselves apart. But here they are, finally Fitzsimmons again, smiling and laughing and happy and together in spite of that, in spite of everything, and it is beautiful to behold. 

This time, May looks away, turning and heading to her bunk the long way around. This moment is not hers to take, she decides. This moment is theirs, theirs, theirs, and she chooses to let them have it.


	2. Do the Hustle?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: FS + Dance Class.

Leopold Fitz hates dancing. This is a well-known fact.

So when he’s sitting in Jemma Simmons’ dorm room studying for his mechanical engineering final and she interrupts him to inform him that they are signed up for a ballroom dancing class Friday night, he practically chokes on the pen that was previously dangling out of his mouth.

“We’re what?” he asks, dumbfounded.

Jemma smiles brightly and bounces a bit on her heels, taking his hand. “We’re taking a dance class!”

“But why?”

“Well, I thought that since you promised to accompany me to my cousin’s wedding in Boston next week,” she says, slightly deflated at Fitz’s tone of voice, “It might be pertinent to ensure that we can dance appropriately.”

“Simmons, I’m fairly certain that wedding dancing is a bit less ballroom and bit more cha-cha slide.”

“Oh, and you’re just the number one authority on wedding dancing, now aren’t you?” Jemma asks, jutting her chin out and crossing her arms. “Have you even been to a wedding before?”

Fitz splutters for a moment. He has most positively never been to a wedding before, but he’s certainly not going to tell her that. “Well, I – of course – who do you – have you?” he finally finishes, defensively. (Smooth, Fitz. Smooth.)

Jemma falters and tightens her arms across her chest. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Mhmm,” Fitz hums, not convinced.

“C’mon, Fitz, it’ll be fun!” she argues, intentionally changing the topic.

Fitz sighs, closing the textbook in front of him. “Simmons, I hate dancing. Do you not recall the week-long argument we had when you tried to convince me to take the dance elective?”

“I still maintain it would have been fun. And informational!”

“Informational,” Fitz scoffs, “yeah, okay.”

“Pleeease, Fitz?” 

She pouts, and Fitz has to use all the resolve he can manage to find to not give in to that face. He will not give in to that face. He twirls his pen as an attempt to distract himself. “Why are you so hung up on his?”

Jemma tucks her hair behind her ear in a nervous tic, suddenly inexplicably flustered. “Well, I just… you see, I simply thought that…”

“Spit it out, Simmons.”

“Um, well, I thought it would be a nice date. Romantic or… something,” she finishes, flushing.

At this, Fitz pauses. This relationship – he’s still giddy just using that word – is new for the two of them. They’d agreed to take things slowly, so Fitz had been shocked (although no less happy to accept) when Jemma had invited him to her cousin’s wedding, where her family would assuredly be present. And between the two of them, Fitz muses, he is definitely the romantic one. So the idea that she wants to do something because she thinks it’ll be romantic… dammit. How can he say no to that?

Fitz sighs overdramatically and looks into Jemma’s expectant eyes. He’s going to regret this, but one last look at that face and he can’t say no. (Can he ever?) “Fine.”

“Thank you!” she squeals, wrapping her arms around his neck awkwardly over all the books perched on his lap.

“But,” Fitz says, “I can’t guarantee I’ll be any good at it.”

“Oh, Fitz,” Simmons says exasperatedly before grinning. “That’s what the lesson is for!”

_________

They’re twenty minutes into the class and Fitz is regretting everything. Unsurprisingly, he is a patently horrible dancer, and if he’s being honest, Simmons is not much better. He had given up trying about five minutes ago. Now in the process of mentally listing all the other more productive things he could be doing with his girlfriend (including, but not limited to, working on their most recent prototypes, watching Doctor Who, and making out), his train of thought is interrupted by said girlfriend’s stage whisper.

“No, Fitz, how many times do I have to tell you? It’s right-left-right, left-right-left. You keep trying to lead with your right foot every time.”

“Lead? I’m not leading anything, Simmons, with your death grip pulling me this way and that.”

“Well, someone has to lead!” she exclaims, “And you sure weren’t doing it.”

“It’s not like you gave me a chance!”

At this point the instructor comes around to the two of them, interrupting their argument and placing her hands on Jemma’s shoulders. “Relax, my dear. You cannot waltz with stiff shoulders. Perhaps it is best for both of you to slow down a bit. You must settle into it.”

She moves on to the next couple, and Fitz clenches his jaw. Simmons looks at him pointedly. “That doesn’t look like relaxing to me.”

“You’re the one she told to relax. Dancing with you is like dancing with a tree,” he shoots back, and Jemma’s eyes widen.

“Oh? Is that so? Well at least I’m trying–“

However that sentence was to end, however, Fitz will never know, as suddenly he and Jemma’s feet are tangled up, and before either of them can react, they are sprawled across the floor, heads knocked onto the worn wood. They groan in tandem.

The instructor rushes over to the two of them, and upon assuring her that they are both perfectly fine, the two turn their heads to face each other. In doing so, Jemma effectively catches a piece of hair in her mouth; she flounders to get it out, and the agitated look on her face is ruined by the image of her sticking her tongue out, trying to spit hair out of her mouth. After a few seconds, she finally does so with a resounding “blegh”.

They look at each other for a moment, unsure how to react. There’s a beat of silence, but suddenly they’re both laughing uncontrollably. Jemma rolls into Fitz and laughs into his chest until her eyes start to water, both completely ignoring the staring eyes of the other dancers, who finally give in and dance around them when they realize the couple aren’t moving anytime soon.

“We really are awful at this,” Fitz finally says, still grinning as he looks down at Simmons.

She wipes tears out of her eyes. “We are.”

“Maybe we should stick with science?” Fitz asks hopefully.

“Are you suggesting that we give up?” Simmons says, astonished. “Certifiable genius Leopold Fitz, PhD, wants to give up?” When he only looks at her sheepishly, she stands up and offers a hand. “No, no, no. If we could get PhDs by 16, we can learn how to ballroom dance, Fitz.” He raises an eyebrow. “Or at least we can try. Now get up.”

Fitz does so begrudgingly, still not convinced that this will work. Jemma sighs. “Perhaps before I was a bit…”

“Strict? Bossy? Overbearing?” Fitz suggests.

“I was going to say pushy, but I suppose those work, too.” She sighs. “The instructor is right. We just need to relax.” Fitz considers making another comment about her claim about both of them needing to relax when the instructor was clearly correcting only Jemma, but thinks better of it. “Maybe it’s best if we just–“

“Not take it so seriously?”

She smiles. “Yes.”

“Sounds good to me,” Fitz says, placing a hand on her waist and taking hers in the other. Then he looks down at his feet and mumbles, his cheeks heating, “So, um, which foot are you supposed to lead with again?”

Jemma rolls her eyes. “Oh, Fitz.”

_________

Fitz had met Mr. and Mrs. Simmons before, but meeting the entire family – as The Boyfriend – is making Fitz wish, more than ever, that he were of legal drinking age in America. It’s not that they aren’t nice, of course – the Simmonses are all charming. But Fitz has never been good with small talk, and well, none of them are as interesting as Jemma. Nor as pretty.

He finally gets a moment away from all the conversation, wishing for nothing more than to just sit and do nothing. He reaches their table, where Simmons has already managed to escape. She sits on her chair (a vision in pink, Fitz can’t help thinking) with her elbow on her knees and her chin in her hand, looking sufficiently miserable as she gazes out at the dance floor. “You were right,” she says.

Fitz bites back a quipping response that of course he’s right, he’s Leo Fitz, and merely asks, “Why?”

“It is a bit more cha-cha slide than ballroom.”

Fitz sighs. Normally he would revel in any excuse not to dance, but one look at her clearly disappointed face and he gives in. He would hate for them to have struggled though that dance class for nothing, after all.

So he hands up and turns to face Jemma, who merely raises an eyebrow. In response, Fitz holds out his hand. “Care to dance?”

“Not to–“ she pauses for a moment, trying to discern what song was playing, “the Hustle.”

“But we’re not going to do the Hustle.” When Jemma looks up at Fitz questioningly and he just shrugs, the corners of her mouth quirk upward. “I hear that the Hustle is actually great for waltzing.”

At that, she breaks into a proper smile and stands up. “In that case, we can’t turn down the opportunity.”

And that’s how Leopold Fitz, self-proclaimed hater of dancing, ends up waltzing (poorly) to the Hustle with Jemma Simmons at a relative stranger’s wedding in Boston. They get a few strange looks, but if dancing means Jemma Simmons gripping his arm and giggling into his shoulder as they sway closer than is probably strictly necessary, Fitz finds that perhaps he doesn’t mind it so much after all.


	3. Vows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The longest wedding vows in the history of all wedding vows, and some other stuff. Shameless fluff. Unbetaed.

“I know,” Jemma began, addressing the crowd instead of Fitz, “that usually in wedding vows people like to wax poetic about how much they love their soon-to-be spouse. But I’m not going to do that. I’d hope that by now, you’d already know,” she added, looking shyly at Fitz, who only smiled crookedly. “Instead, I’m going to tell a story about a name. I’m going to tell it backwards, if you don’t mind.” When Fitz nodded in encouragement, Jemma steeled herself and began her speech. 

“Um, when I was on Maveth—“ Jemma’s breath hitched and her voice shook, and she took a deep breath, squeezing her eyes shut. _I can do this, I can do this, I can do this_ , she thought, but she wasn’t quite sure she believed herself. No number of rehearsal vows into her mirror could prepare her for this. 

“Jem,” Fitz murmured, reaching out and grabbing her hand. Jemma slowly opened her eyes to find his looking back at her, stunning blue eyes boring into hers with nothing behind them but love and reverence and encouragement, and Fitz didn’t even have to say anything more. No longer could she see the blue of that unforgiving wasteland, no longer could she see the blue of the vast and relentless sea. She could do this. She could do this. 

“When I was on that — that godforsaken planet, I told Will a lot about home. Bear with me,” she added at Fitz’s furrowed brow. “I wouldn’t be saying this if I didn’t think it was important.”

“I trust you,” he said with the ghost of a smile.

“Good,” Jemma said matter-of-factly, “now stop interrupting my vows.” At that, Fitz cracked a smile, and Jemma heard a few members of their small audience chuckle. Simmons couldn’t help smiling as well.

“Anyway, I told Will about home. About the team, about my family, about my life. And I showed him pictures of you guys. And videos. And I pointed you out to him, I said that’s, that’s Fitz, and then he said something that I will never forget. He said, _Yeah, I figured. You talk about him a lot. His name is like your favorite word_. That was data point number one."

Jemma took a deep breath before she continued. “Data point number two: whenever I worked with other scientists in the past, especially male scientists, I never wanted to share the credit. Perhaps it was selfishness, perhaps it was pride, perhaps it was an instinctual attempt at trying to hold onto the respect of my peers, not let myself be overshadowed when, let’s face it, I did 80% of the work.” Fitz rolled his eyes good-naturedly, but Jemma merely shrugged and forged on. "And even if I did allow another name on the report, I always made sure mine was first. But the first time someone called us Fitzsimmons — it was Professor Weaver, I believe — I found that I didn’t mind. And when people picked up on it, kept doing it, put it on our papers, I didn’t mind. I didn’t correct them, or force them to write it Simmonsfitz. Even then, even then your name was my favorite word. And I was proud to have it in front of mine. I was proud to share it with you."

“Data point number three: when I told my mum that we were _together_ together, she laughed and said ‘finally’, and called over my father, who said ‘thank God, Jemma, I thought I might die before finally getting to walk you down the aisle.'” Her father chuckled loudly at himself from the front row and Jemma met his eyes, giving a watery laugh. “I asked them how they knew. And my mum said that she knew the very first time that I called home from the Academy but instead of talking about science this, science that, it was Fitz this, Fitz that. And then years went past and I never stopped saying your name. It easily became part of my vernacular. I had claimed it to my world. I had gripped it tight and had no plans to give it back."

"Conclusion: I have always loved you, in one way or another. Long before I knew I loved you, long before I was aware of what I was saying, your name was everywhere in my world. I was constantly saying it, constantly writing it, constantly hearing it, constantly tacking it onto my own. And after today, whenever I need to give my signature, I'll be able to sign it." She smiled. "Jemma Fitzsimmons. I’ve been saying that quite a lot recently. I’ve heard other people say that when they get married and they change their name it sounds foreign at first, that they have to get used to it. But not this one. It just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? It’s not foreign. This name feels like home. It always has. And this is my promise to you that if I have anything to do with it, it always will.”

Jemma looked back up at Fitz only to find tears forming in his eyes, threatening to make their way down his face. He blinked and they began to fall; Jemma reached up fondly and swiped the tears away with her fingertips. “Fitz,” she chastised, “you can’t cry! We’re getting married!”

He leaned forward so that his forehead was resting against hers and grinned through his tears. “Jem, I’m fairly certain that’s a non sequitur.” 

But he leaned forward to kiss her anyway and was only a few millimeters away from his goal before she jumped two feet back and squealed, “You can’t do that yet!” 

Fitz pouted. “But I waaaant to kiss you.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“I’m marrying a child.”

“I’m not sure that’s legal, Jems. Might want to check on that.”

“Fitz.”

“Yes?”

“All these people are waiting. Read your damn vows.” His head whipped around to see all the fond faces looking back at him. He stared for a moment as if he had forgotten they were there altogether, stuck in his own little world with Jemma and Jemma alone.

“Okay."

 

 

Jemma cried at Fitz’s vows. When he teased her for breaking her own wedding rules and tried to kiss her again, she punched him in the arm and asked him if he was _done_ yet, because she just wanted to get _married_ , for god’s sake.

“If I say I’m done and we get married, can I kiss you whenever I want?”

“Within reason.”

“Okay. I’m done then. I wanna get married now.”

Jemma scoffed (albeit a little fondly, although she would never admit to that when asked.) “I should hope so, given that you were the one who proposed to me.”

“Technically we proposed to each other.”

“For once I’m letting you claim the proposal and now you’re arguing it? Shut up and marry me, you daft man.”

Fitz smiled crookedly. “Okay."

 

 

Afterwards, Jemma wondered why no one stopped all their bickering on the altar; after all, they probably wasted a good five minutes on silly banter, and given the fact that Daisy hadn’t stopped talking about it for days, she was quite sure most of their guests really just wanted to get to the reception.

It bothered her well into their honeymoon, so a few days later when she finally texted Bobbi to ask, confident that the woman would be honest with her, she did not expect to cry at the response. She did not expect for Fitz to come out of the shower twenty minutes later, towel-drying his hair, to find her laying on the bed hiccuping as she stared at her phone. 

“What’s wrong?” Fitz asked, alarmed, and if she weren’t so busy trying not to start crying again she might’ve laughed at the tufts of wet curls that stood askew on his head as he dropped the towel onto the bed and neglected his previous task.

Jemma shoved the phone in his face. “Read it.”

He squinted. “No one had ever seen either of you so happy,” he read aloud. “Given the lives we lead, we don’t often get to see you guys like that, just silly and happy and free. There’s no way in hell any of us were about to let that go.” Fitz paused and reached out to grab her hand, squeezing it. "Jemma, we all love you. We just want you happy. And you make each other happy, so none of us would ever, ever take that away. Now stop worrying so much and enjoy your honeymoon. And please, go kiss your husband.”

Jemma laughed, using the back of her hand to wipe away the tears that had sprung anew after hearing Bobbi’s text in Fitz’s voice. “You added that last sentence.”

“Maybe I did. But I do believe this counts as _within reason_.”

Rolling her eyes, Jemma leaned into Fitz and gave him a chaste kiss on the lips before pulling back a bit and lingering there. “They love us.”

“Yes.”

“And I love you.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not allowed to forget that.”

“I could never.”

They stayed like that for a moment, invading each other’s space, just hovering there, but neither seeming to mind. 

“Hey Jem?”

“Hmm?” she hummed in return.

“You can’t cry. We’re on our honeymoon.”

Jemma scoffed, but showed no intention of moving away, instead resting her forehead on Fitz’s and allowing her eyes to flutter peacefully closed.

“Hey Jem?”

“Hmm?”

“I love you, too, Dr. Dr. Fitzsimmons."


	4. To Grump or Not to Grump

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Chapter 10 of grapehyasynth‘s Paradise Found, in which Jemma mentions that Fitz only pretends to be a grump half the time. I read that line and the idea wouldn’t leave me alone so I literally interrupted my reading of the chapter to write this at 3 am. (Never fear, though, I did come back and finish the chapter. It’s a wonderful fic, honestly — would highly recommend!)
> 
> Context: none. Really. There is no context. I have no idea what or why things are happening here but I just had to do it. LET ME HAVE THIS, OKAY.
> 
> Unbetaed, and actually short enough to be properly labeled a drabble this time. Riddle me that.

In the end, it was Fitz’s mouth that betrayed him.

“Aha!” Jemma cried, pointing at Fitz’s face gleefully, bouncing on her knees and leaning over him so that if she’d opted to sit herself down, she’d be straddling him. “I saw that! Your mouth just twitched!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fitz grumbled, trying to roll back over in the bed. For all his inelegant efforts, he was stopped by Jemma’s legs, which she squeezed more tightly around his hips in an attempt to keep him in place.

“You’re not actually grumpy right now,” Jemma said. “You’re just faking it. You are being a fake grump and I caught you, Leopold Fitz.”

The man in question merely stared back, his face configured in an annoyed look. “You might be trying to cover it up right now with that face,” she said, waving her hand in its general direction before going to back to pointing at him, “but I’ve found you out and now I have the evidence to prove it. All these years you’ve just been trying to maintain a grumpy front.” Jemma poked him in the stomach. “But you haven’t fooled me.”

Suddenly and with impressive speed, Fitz sat himself up, grabbing Jemma by the waist and flipping her over so that he was half on top of her. (That was not a squeal that came out of her mouth, it was a noise of indignation, thank you very much.) Before she could react, however, his pout turned into a wicked smile and he starting tickling every part of her he could reach.

“Fitz!” Jemma tried to sound stern, but given her current predicament and the fact that Fitz had once deemed her the most ticklish person on the planet (a fact which he, clearly, often exploited), it was a bit hard to achieve.

Luckily for Jemma, however, it wasn’t long before she accidentally kicked Fitz in the gut (if he was going to tickle her, she had always warned him, that was the risk he had to take — although it had yet to stop him from trying) and he gave up on his attempts, instead latching onto her arm and burying his head into her side. “I am actually grumpy _sometimes_ ,” Fitz mumbled, and Jemma couldn’t help but smile in amusement. She sat up a bit, wriggling out of his grasp so that she could lean down to kiss the top of his head before gently taking his hand and rubbing her thumb over his absentmindedly.

“I know.”


	5. Couches and Cuddles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m not sure if Fitz or Simmons would use the word couch over some of its alternatives (sofa, like all those weird non-Midwesterners? Davenport, like an old man from the boonies?), but I sure do, so now they do. Anyway, there’s fluff coming out of my ears after writing this.
> 
> It’s the middle of the night, I wrote this as a way to procrastinate packing, and it’s very, very unbetaed, so sorry if it’s not in English or something.

"Jemmaaaa,” Fitz whined, drawing out the vowel from his sprawled-out position on the couch, “Love me.”

The woman in question seemed not to hear him, leaning further on the counter and absently stirring her probably now-cold tea, completely engrossed in her conversation with Bobbi. Fitz merely continued to stare longingly in her direction — he was being a little needy, perhaps, but he was tired and he wanted cuddles from his girlfriend and was that too much to ask?

He was interrupted from his reverie when the one and only Lance Hunter plopped himself directly on top of Fitz’s hip and whacked him in the face with a flying forearm.

Fitz shifted awkwardly under Hunter’s weight and groaned. “Hunter, what are you doing?”

“You wanted someone to love you. So here I am. At your service.”

“I didn’t mean _you_ ,” Fitz grumbled, giving the man a halfhearted shove.

“Yeah, well. Both our girlfriends are distracted, so it doesn’t appear as though either of us has many other options at the moment.”

Fitz sighed melodramatically. “Fine. But if you’re going to lay on me like a lapdog, can you at least get off my damn hip?”

 

 

 

It was a full twenty minutes before either Jemma or Bobbi noticed Fitz and Hunter, both half asleep, piled on top of each other on the couch. 

Bobbi only laughed and pulled out her phone to take a picture, but Jemma approached them and peered at them from behind the couch back. “Boys. What are you doing?”

Fitz opened an eye a crack, but upon being greeted by the bright light above them, quickly shut it and groaned. “I wanted you to love me, but you wouldn’t, so I had to resort to Hunter.”

Hunter shifted his body sleepily, ignoring Fitz’s grunt of pain as he did so. “I wanted to lay on the couch, but Fitz was in the way. So I made him my couch.”

Jemma and Bobbi exchanged a look, both fondly rolling their eyes at the men they chose to love. “Alright, Fitzy,” Jemma said, reaching out to stroke his hair. "I’ll love you. Up you get.”

“Noooo," Hunter moaned, eyes still glued shut. "You can’t take away my couch.”

Bobbi scoffed. “Let’s find you another couch, Hunter.”

“Will you be my new couch?”

Bobbi shook her head, but couldn’t help but smile as she said, “Whatever, babe. Sure.” In a few moments, Bobbi’s enticing offer of being Hunter’s personal couch finally urged him off of Fitz. 

Jemma reached a hand out to Fitz. “C’mon. Let’s go back to my bunk for the night.” He gave a noncommittal grunt and grasped her hand, but instead of pulling himself up, Fitz tugged her down to him with surprising force, dragging her over the back of the couch with a small squeal on Jemma’s part, then quickly scooting himself into a more comfortable position and putting his face in her neck.

“No. Too tired to move.”

Previously intent on sleeping in her own bed for once, Jemma found that she was far less inclined to argue when her head was on Fitz’s shoulder and his fingers were underneath her shirt, drawing patterns on her back. She pulled her head away from him, just admiring him for a moment, before placing a chaste kiss on his jawline and snuggling back in. “Just this one time,” she mumbled.

They laid there in silence for a few minutes, Jemma drifting off into a contented sleep, when she was interrupted by Fitz’s sleepy voice in her ear. “Hey, Jemma?”

“Mm?”

“You smell better than Hunter.”


	6. “I don’t want to go alone to my ex’s wedding and our mutual friend said you’re free that night” AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For chinesebakery, who sent the lovely prompt my way.
> 
> Unbeta'd.

“So. You’re Simmons, I take it?”

“Oh, call me Jemma,” the woman said, holding out her hand for Fitz to shake. As he shook said hand, he realized that his previous descriptor may have been slightly inaccurate. It was very possible that this Jemma was not, in fact, a woman at all, and was instead a goddess. (It was still up in the air, however. And the only way to be sure was to continue to study the test subject. It was only logical.)

“Thank you so much for doing this,” she continued, completely oblivious to what was assuredly Fitz’s best impression of a blinking, gaping fish (they did always say that looking directly at a goddess would blind you). “I really didn’t want to go, but I ran into Milton a few weeks ago at the _aquarium_ , of all places, and I couldn’t really get out of it. And I was going to bring Hunter as a platonic date, but now he’s on-again with Bobbi, and, well, I presume you know how that goes.”

“All too well,” Fitz managed to choke out. 

“Well, I’m thankful Hunter thought of you, in any event. And again, so thankful that you agreed to come to this ridiculous thing.”

“Not a problem.” 

This, of course, was an outright lie. By the time the reception was winding down — one awkward encounter with Milton, two second helpings of dinner (on his part), three uncontrollable giggling fits at the horrible drunken dancing of the other guests (on her part), four mocking imitations of Milton’s voice (they split the bill on this one), and five hours later — Fitz had realized that his agreeing to do this had become a huge problem. 

Hunter had been nagging Fitz for months, trying to set him up with this “British bird” from their side of the pond who knew Bobbi from uni and was apparently “just his type, y’know, nerdy and all”. What Hunter had failed to mention, Fitz mused as he watched her finish off her drink, head bopping imperceptibly along to the far-too-loud music, was that this very Jemma Simmons was an actual child-prodigy genius like him, a scientist with multiple PhDs, easier to talk to than any other person he’d ever met, arguably the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and thus far, far out of his league. What Hunter had failed to mention was that Jemma Simmons was the kind of woman who would effectively ruin every other woman — nay, person — for Fitz for the rest of his life. 

Suddenly, and before Fitz had any more time to let his mind spiral, Jemma stood up and held out a hand. She had wisps of silky hair falling out of her updo and she’d long since ditched her shoes and her lipstick was a teensy bit smudged in one corner and she was a little bit drunk off champagne but her eyes were sparkling and the fairy lights all around them lit up her face just right and _god_ , was she beautiful. “Fitz, dance with me.”

Oh, he was _fucked_.


	7. "I was cleaning up and I found an old birthday card I gave to you years ago. Why did you keep it?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For perthshirekisses.

Getting the okay from Coulson for her and Fitz to move into their own, shared, bigger bunk at the Playground had been fantastic news. The actual process of moving, however, was most decidedly not. She had no idea how it happened, but between the time the team had moved from Sci-Ops to the Bus to the Playground, she and Fitz had acquired a lot of, well, stuff. 

“Fitz?” Jemma called from her current position in front of his dresser. “Do you really need this Jimmy John’s t-shirt? It has no fewer than six holes in it.”

He came up behind her, and when she turned around, she found him looking scandalized. “Jemma Simmons, that is a prized possession. I got it for free when I was 16 at the Jimmy John’s I always went to at the Academy. We’ve bonded. And anyway, the holes make it vintage.”

Jemma swatted him with it. “Seriously, Fitz? Can I please ditch it?”

He sighed melodramatically. “I suppose.”

“Thank youuu,” she said, drawing out the syllable.

“No respect for a man’s prized possessions,” Fitz grumbled under his breath as he turned to walk back to his post clearing out his desk. In retaliation, Jemma stuck out her foot and tripped him, Fitz narrowly avoiding faceplanting onto his clothes-covered floor. “Rude,” he said, but Jemma only shrugged innocently in response and returned to going through his drawers.

She finally reached the bottom of what was once a t-shirt drawer and had eventually become a catch-all — the boy had no sense of proper clothing organization, really — when she found herself faced with a stack of unidentified papers shoved in the corner. Odd.

She began rifling through them to see if they were worth keeping. His letter of invitation to the SHIELD Sci-Tech Academy, a lengthy letter from his mother dated Christmas Day from the first holiday season that Fitz had to stay stateside, a handful of patent certificates — Jemma quickly realized that each paper in this stack held some sort of sentimental value. It was quite sweet, really, that he had so intentionally kept them, she mused, if not a bit odd that he kept them stuffed in the back of his dresser.

Glancing over to find Fitz engrossed in his task and not paying her any mind, she continued to look through the stack. Two letters notifying him of failure in his field tests, a letter inviting him to be a part of the SHIELD 616 team anyway, a 17th birthday card from — what?

“Fitz?” Jemma asked, furrowing her brow as she looked over the card. _Happy birthday, Fitz! Love, Jemma Simmons_. There was nothing special about it, and she couldn’t fathom why he might still have it. “I gave this card to you years ago. Why’ve you kept it?”

He looked up in alarm. “What card?”

Jemma waved it in the air. “This one. I gave it to you for your 17th birthday.”

“Oh, um…” He waved her off. “Was probably an accident.”

“Right,” Jemma said, rolling her eyes and crossing the room towards him. “You _accidentally_ put it in a pile of papers with sentimental value, and you _accidentally_ kept it for over ten years by _accidentally_ bringing it from the Academy to SciOps to the Bus to here.” When he didn’t answer, she kept pressing. “C’mon, Fitz. We’re about to move in together. You can tell me why you kept a stupid old card.”

Fitz shrugged sheepishly. “I don’t know. You wrote _Love, Jemma Simmons_ , and it…” He scratched the back of his neck and looked at the ground. “I didn’t really understand why at the time but it just… it felt important.”

He finally met her gaze, and Jemma felt a slow smile forming on her lips. “You kept this card for all this time… because I wrote _Love, Jemma Simmons_ on it?”

Fitz grimaced. “Yeah?”

Jemma let out a short laugh and Fitz tensed. “What?” he asked defensively.

“No, no,” she said, stepping closer to him and putting a placating hand on his shoulder. “I didn’t mean… I just, it’s cute. That you did that. Kept this card, and everything.”

At this, Fitz visibly relaxed (and visibly blushed). “Did you, uh, did you get through the whole pile?”

“Mmm, not quite. Why?” Jemma asked.

In lieu of a response, Fitz just stood up and walked towards the dresser, Jemma following. He picked up the pile and started rifling through it until he found what he was looking for, a single piece of brown cardstock. He handed it to her shyly. She turned it around in her hands so she could read it properly, and once again recognized her own handwriting.

_Prosciutto & Mozzarella_  
_Be safe!_  
_Love, Jemma_

She turned to find Fitz looking at her hopefully, as if asking an unspoken question.

Jemma wasn’t sure she could articulate an answer worthy of how she felt about this daft, disorganized, sentimental, kind man in that moment, so she didn’t. She just kissed him.


	8. "I don't want to go alone to my ex's wedding and..." Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For grapehyasynth and writeonthrough, who both requested a continuation.

Fitz sits in an otherwise empty booth in Shakespeare’s Pub, rearranging sugar packets and wondering why a pub, of all places, would have a need for sugar packets. Same reason it’s called Shakespeare’s Pub, he supposes, sighing and shuffling the packets into a new configuration. The one time he actually manages to be on time, and of course Bobbi and Hunter are late. Granted, it’s only five after and perhaps he’s being a bit melodramatic, but pretty soon he’s going to die of hunger, and if he drops dead right here and now it would _definitely_ be Hunter’s fault. 

“Hey, mate.” He glances up. Speak of the devil.

“Thank god,” Fitz says as the other man slides into the seat across from him, “I’m starving. I was going to have to resort to eating these sugar packets if you didn’t show up soon.”

“Might I remind you that last week you showed up _twenty minutes late_?”

“You can’t even complain. When Bobbi’s not around to keep you in check, you never get out of bed ’til three in the afternoon. Remember that Saturday brunch with your boss you completely slept through?” Hunter just shrugs and waves a waiter over, ordering beers for the both of them before lounging back in the booth like he owns it. (To be fair, they do occupy this booth every Thursday night. Only once had their claim to their domain been challenged, and a clean-sweep game of pool had solved that one pretty easily.)

“Hey,” Fitz said, brow furrowing, “where is Bobbi, anyway? I thought you two were on again?”

“Oh, we are,” Hunter says. “But she offered to give Jemma a ride, since Bob works over on her side of town anyway, and I guess they hit a bit of traffic, but they’ll be here in a few.”

Fitz freezes. He’s fairly certain that he looks quite like a deer in headlights at the moment, but that’s the least of his concerns. “Jemma… is coming here? Now? Jemma Simmons?”

“Oh yeah, did I forget to mention?” Hunter asks nonchalantly, but there’s a sly glint in his eye and Fitz _knows_ Hunter did this on purpose, and oh, god, now he’s panicking. 

“Hunter, you can’t just — that’s not —“ Much to his dismay, Fitz finds himself unable to form a coherent sentence, and even more to his dismay, Hunter is just looking at him and laughing. Their waiter returns, beers in tow, and Fitz takes this time to prepare a proper sentence. “Hunter,” he finally hisses once the waiter has left, “this is not a laughing matter.” (Not his best work, but he was under a time crunch, to be fair.)

“Oh, calm down,” Hunter says, waving him off. “It’s been what, five days since Milton’s wedding? And Jemma won’t stop asking about you. So I may have mentioned that we meet up at the pub for dinner and beers every Thursday and Bobbi may have mentioned that she’s perfectly welcome to tag along if she pleases.”

“And she said _yes_?” he asks in disbelief.

“Of course she said yes, you git. She won’t shut up about you. It’s actually kind of annoying.” Fitz still looks like a deer in headlights, so Hunter reaches across the table and shoves him arm good-naturedly. “C’mon, mate. It’s like a double date. It’ll be fun.”

The blood rushes from Fitz’s face and his voice goes up an octave. “A double date? Does _she_ think this is a double date?”

Hunter leans down and bangs his head on the table dramatically before looking back up and answering. “Fitz. Look at me. Listen to my words. She _likes_ you. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but you two are basically a match made in nerd heaven. I have no idea what you’re so concerned about.”

In response, Fitz leans across the table on his elbows and says, very seriously, “Hunter. She is a _goddess_. And I have a stain on my shirt.”

Of course, it is at that very moment that two shadows fall over the table, and Fitz hears the unmistakable sound of Bobbi clearing her throat. Fitz whips his head up and sees Bobbi trying to contain a smile, _that traitor_ , and next to her Jemma has suddenly gone beet red and oh dear god, she heard that. She totally heard that.

“Hi, Fitz,” she says, and Fitz snaps his gaping mouth shut. 

“Um, hi,” he manages to mumble out, and even without looking in a mirror he can tell he is sporting a deep blush to match hers, no doubt about it. Bobbi sits down next to Hunter, no longer even trying to hide her sly grin, and Jesus _fuck_ , these two know exactly what they’re doing because now the only place for Jemma to sit is right next to Fitz. 

She cautiously slides into the seat next to him, but their booth is a fairly small one and their legs and their arms are almost touching and oh god, how is he going to survive this night?

The dinner starts out painfully awkward. It seems that Fitz isn’t the only one who can’t get his earlier comment out of mind, with Jemma acting strangely bashful and the other two even more shameless than usual about trying to get them together. But by the time they’re a beer and a half in he and Jemma are completely and utterly baffling Bobbi and Hunter with their rapid-fire banter as they bicker about who the greatest scientist to ever live was, and she keeps reaching across him (and their legs brush and their arms brush and can she can feel his goosebumps through his flannel?) to steal his chili cheese fries — “What happened to eating healthy, hm?” he asks, but she just shrugs and smirks and takes another — and he keeps forgetting that Bobbi and Hunter are even there at all. 

And by the time Bobbi and Jemma get up to head to the bathroom, Fitz is buzzing is Hunter is looking far too smug. “You’re so into her, and we both know it.” He pauses, as if for effect, before forging on. “Fitz, you let her eat your food. And not just any food. Your über-American, heart-attack inducing chili cheese fries which you normally protect with your _life_.”

As much as it would normally bring him joy to prove Hunter wrong, Fitz can’t find it in him to argue. Instead, he just throws a crumpled up napkin at him and does his best to hide the dopey smile on his face.

“Just go ahead and start ringing the wedding bells now, mate,” Hunter says. Luckily, Fitz is saved from finding an answer to Hunter’s forwardness by the return of the girls. Rather than sitting back down, however, Jemma only bounces on her heels and leans on the side of the booth with a toothy grin. “Let’s play pool.” Really, Fitz is quite content to stay here and to sit back as he watches Jemma Simmons take on the world with that infectious enthusiasm of hers, but when she asks him to be her partner there’s no way in hell he’s going to say no to that face and that smile and that hand on his shoulder so he nods and she grins and both Bobbi and Hunter are smirking and he is fucked, fucked, _fucked_. 

But she grabs his hand and drags him over towards the pool table and when she looks back at him she’s got the same dazzling, hopeful look on her face that she had when she asked him to dance at Milton’s wedding and he may be fucked, he decides, but he finds that he does not mind at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few months ago I ran across a pub called Shakespeare’s Pub, and it is now my default pub name because I love it so much. This may be only the first instance, but beware. Soon it will find a way to show up in every single one of my fics. Need a good pub name? Shakespeare’s Pub. Need a good bookstore name? Shakespeare’s Pub. Need a good street name? Shakespeare’s Pub. I am incorrigible and unstoppable. 
> 
> Oh, and also, I’m not saying I speak from experience re: showing up twenty minutes late to a restaurant, but I definitely speak from experience re: showing up twenty minutes late to a restaurant. Like Hunter, I also slept through brunch once (although luckily, not with my boss.) I’m a great friend.


End file.
